Known disaster recovery solutions involve periodic copying or backing up of data from a production server to a remote backup server via a network. The backup data typically comprises data, such as bank accounts, generated by applications executing in the production server. The backup server typically includes the applications and operating system that are installed at the production server. If there are updates to the applications and operating system in the production server, an administrator typically receives these updates from the manufacturer and installs them at both the production server and backup server. Consequently, if the production server fails and cannot be recovered in a predetermined amount of time, then production operations can continue using the current data and latest versions of applications and operating system at the backup server. When the original production server resumes operation, any intervening updates to the data made at the backup server can be copied to the original production server.
In the foregoing scenario, typically the updates to the data at the production server are logged at the production server, and the update logs (not the entire files at the production server) are copied to the backup server. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be downloaded via the network to the backup server. Also, typically, the production server compresses the data before downloading to the backup server to further reduce the amount of data that needs to be downloaded to the backup server. Nevertheless, the download may consume a substantial portion of the network bandwidth between the production server and the backup server. Also, the process of compressing a large file may take a significant amount of processor resource at the production server.
When the backup server receives compressed update logs, the backup server must decompress them and then restore the corresponding files at the backup server, i.e. apply the updates to the corresponding existing data files at the backup server to make them current and synchronized with those in the production server. The decompression process may consume a significant amount of processor resource at the backup server depending on the amount of data to be decompressed.
An object of the present invention is to expedite the download of data updates from a production server to a backup server and expedite the application of those updates to corresponding files in the backup server.